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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Diego's Bad Day.

I think one of the cows stepped on him,
so now I've got to figure out a way to keep the goats out of the
cow-side of the barn... no
idea how I would do that.

Took
awhile to get a hold of someone at the vet's office (and by awhile, I
mean about an hour, but I was panicked), they got me to splint it
before I brought him in. So I'm madly running all over the farm
looking for anything
to splint this leg with. I managed to find a dowel in the shop, and
after 20 minutes the duct tape. Then I cut a piece of electrical
conduit for the other side. (We're going to find something better and put it in the first-air box just-in-case.)

Now
isn't that pretty!

According
to the vet, I actually did a good job (I'm not convinced), got it
longer then his toes, and kept the whole thing together until we got
there. I had to splint it so that Diego didn't step on it or
something, and end up with the bone out of the skin.

Diego
was a trooper!! Took awhile to get the cast on so he was coming out
of the sedative towards the end and he stayed quiet and well behaved
for the whole thing. We got lucky because the break was clean and
uncomplicated, and stayed under the skin, and there was no damage to
the blood vessels; it's likely he'll make a full recovery. Diego's
foot was still warm, even by the time I got him to the vet; if it had
been cold we wouldn't have been able to save the foot.

The
vet laid down tape, then gauze, then used wire on each side which you
use to remove the cast later (I also got a great story about how at
vet school they heard about what happens when you cross the wires
then tried to remove a cast, the leg comes too), so they are taped
down. Then the cast is over top of all that, with a bit of really
stinky gluey stuff on the end as a 'shoe' to keep the whole thing
together.

That
is one darn lucky goat too!! You can splint it yourself and leave it,
and if he was a market goat or something, that is what we would have
done. But he's not, he's a pet, and my favourite (okay they are all
my favourite...). All I can say about the whole thing is Diego you'd
better be the best darn goat you can be, especially when the bill
arrives!!

Had
to run to the feed store since it was across the road anyway, and I was
telling the ladies about what happened, the response was "Isn't it fun
to be a farmer?". Of course they get a very sarcastic "Oh yes! SO much
fun!!" but really, even days like this, I don't mind at all. Got to
learn a lot of new things about the goats and do something I've never
even attempted before (splinting). Wouldn't trade it for the world!